Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter

by Israel Potter

To make the best of my hard fortune, I became as resigned and reconciled to my situation as circumstances would admit of; flattering myself that fortune might at some unexpected moment so far decide in my favour, as to enable me to accomplish my wishes—I indeed bore my afflictions with a degree of fortitude which I could hardly have believed myself possessed of—I had become an expert workman at brick making at which business and at gardening, I continued to work for very small wages, for three or four years after the Peace—but still found my prospects of a speedy return to my country, by no ways flattering. The peace had thrown thousands who had taken an active part in the war, out of employ; London was thronged with them—who, in preference to starving, required no other consideration for their labour than a humble living, which had a lamentable effect in reducing the wages of the labouring class of people; who, previous to this event were many of them so extremely poor, as to be scarcely able to procure the necessaries of life for their impoverished families—among this class I must rank myself, and from this period ought I to date the commencement of my greatest miseries, which never failed to attend me in a greater or less degree until that happy moment, when favoured by providence, I was permitted once more to visit the peaceful shores of the land of my nativity.

When I first entered the city of London, I was almost stunned, while my curiosity was not a little excited by what is termed the “cries of London”—the streets were thronged by persons of both sexes and of every age, crying each the various articles which they were exposing for sale, or for jobs of work at their various occupations;—I little then thought that this was a mode which I should be obliged myself to adopt to obtain a scanty pittance for my needy family—but, such indeed proved to be the case. The great increase of labourers produced by the cessation of hostilities, had so great an effect in the reduction of wages, that the trifling consideration now allowed me by my employers for my services, in the line of business in which I had been several years engaged, was no longer an object, being insufficient to enable me to procure a humble sustenance. Having in vain sought for more profitable business, I was induced to apply to an acquaintance for instruction in the art of chair bottoming, and which I partially obtained from him for a trifling consideration.

It was now (which was in the year 1789) that I assumed a line of business very different from that in which I had ever before been engaged—fortunately for me, I possessed strong lungs, which I found very necessary in an employment the success of which depended, in a great measure, in being enabled to drown the voices of others (engaged in the same occupation) by my own—“Old Chairs to Mend,” became now my constant cry through the streets of London, from morning to night; and although I found my business not so profitable as I could have wished, yet it yielded a tolerable support for my family some time, and probably would have continued so to have done, had not the almost constant illness of my children, rendered the expenses of my family much greater than they otherwise would have been—thus afflicted by additional cares and expense, (although I did every thing in my power to avoid it) I was obliged, to alleviate the sufferings of my family, to contract some trifling debts which it was not in my power to discharge.

I now became the victim of additional miseries—I was visited by a bailiff employed by a creditor, who seizing me with the claws of a tiger, dragged me from my poor afflicted family and inhumanly thurst me into prison! indeed no misery that I ever before endured equalled this—separated from those dependent on me for the necessaries of life, and placed in a situation in which it was impossible for me to afford them any relief!—fortunately for me at this melancholly moment, my wife enjoyed good health, and it was to her praise-worthy exertions that her poor helpless children, as well as myself, owed our preservation from a state of starvation!—this good woman had become acquainted with many who had been my customers, whom she made acquainted with my situation, and the sufferings of my family, and who had the humanity to furnish me with work during my confinement—the chairs were conveyed to and from the prison by my wife—in this way I was enabled to support myself and to contribute something to the relief of my afflicted family. I had in vain represented to my unfeeling creditor my inability to satisfy his demands, and in vain represented to him the suffering condition of those wholly dependent on me; unfortunately for me, he proved to be one of those human beasts, who, having no soul, take pleasure in tormenting that of others, who never feel but in their own misfortunes, and never rejoice but in the afflictions of others—of such beings, so disgraceful to human nature, I assure the reader London contains not an inconsiderable number.

After having for four months languished in a horrid prison, I was liberated therefrom a mere skeleton; the mind afflicted had tortured the body; so much is the one in subjection to the other—I returned sorrowful and dejected to my afflicted family whom I found in very little better condition. We now from necessity took up our abode in an obscure situation near Moorfields; where, by my constant application to business, I succeeded in earning daily a humble pittance for my family, bearly sufficient however to satisfy the cravings of nature; and to add to my afflictions, some one of my family were almost constantly indisposed.

However wretched my situation there were many others at this period, with whom I was particularly acquainted, whose sufferings were greater if possible than my own; and whom want and misery drove to the commission of crimes, that in any other situation they would probably not have been guilty of. Such was the case of the unfortunate Bellamy, who was capitally convicted and executed for a crime which distresses in his family, almost unexampled, had in a moment of despair, compelled him to commit. He was one who had seen better days, was once a commissioned officer in the army, but being unfortunate he was obliged to quit the service to avoid the horrors of a prison, and was thrown on the world, without a single penny or a single friend. The distresses of his family were such, that they were obliged to live for a considerable time deprived of all sustenance except what they could derive from scanty and precarious meals of potatoes and milk—in this situation his unfortunate wife was confined in child bed—lodging in an obscure garret, she was destitute of every species of those conveniences almost indespensable with females in her condition, being herself without clothes, and to procure a covering for her new born infant, all their resources were exhausted. In this situation his wife and children must inevitably have starved, were it not for the loan of five shillings which he walked from London to Blackheath to borrow. At his trial he made a solemn appeal to heaven, as to the truth of every particular as above stated—and that so far from wishing to exaggerate a single fact, he had suppressed many more instances of calamity scarcely to be paralleled—that after the disgrace brought upon himself by this single transaction, life could not be a boon he would be anxious to solicit, but that nature pleaded in his breast for a deserving wife and helpless child—all however was ineffectual, he was condemned and executed pursuant to his sentence.

I have yet one or two more melancholly instances of the effects of famine to record, the first of which happened within a mile of my then miserable habitation—a poor widow woman, who had been left destitute with five small children, and who had been driven to the most awful extremities by hunger, overpowered at length by the pitiful cries of her wretched offspring, for a morsel of bread, in a fit of despair, rushed into the shop of a baker in the neighbourhood, and seizing a loaf of bread bore it off to the relief of her starving family, and while in the act of dividing it among them, the baker (who had pursued her) entered and charged her with the theft—the charge she did not deny, but plead the starving condition of her wretched family in palliation of the crime!—the baker noticing a platter on the table containing a quantity of roasted meat, he pointed to it as a proof that she could not have been driven to such an extremity by hunger—but, his surprise may be better imagined than described, when being requested by the half distracted mother to approach and inspect more closely the contents of the platter, to find it to consist of the remains of a roasted dog! and which she informed him had been her only food, and that of her poor children, for the three preceding days!—the baker struck with so shocking a proof of the poverty and distress of the wretched family, humanely contributed to their relief until they were admitted into the hospital.

I was not personally acquainted with the family, but I well knew one who was, and who communicated to me the following melancholly particulars of its wretched situation; and with which I now present my readers, as another proof of the deplorable situation of the poor in England, after the close of the American war:—The minister of a parish was sent for to attend the funeral of a deceased person in his neighbourhood, being conducted to the apartment which contained the corpse (and which was the only one improved by the wretched family) he found it so low as to be unable to stand upright in it—in a dark corner of the room stood a three legged stool, which supported a coffin of rough boards, and which contained the body of the wretched mother, who had the day previous expired in labour for the want of assistance. The father was sitting on a little stool over a few coals of fire, and endeavouring to keep the infant warm in his bosom; five of his seven children, half naked, were asking their father for a piece of bread, while another about three years old was standing over the corpse of his mother, and crying, as he was wont to do, “take me, take me, mammy!”—“Mammy is asleep,” said one of his sisters with tears in her eyes, “mammy is asleep, Johnny, don’t cry, the good nurse has gone to beg you some bread and will soon return!”—In a few minutes after, an old woman, crooked with age, and clothed in tatters came hobbling into the room, with a two-penny loaf in her hand, and after heaving a sigh, calmly set down, and divided the loaf as far as it would go among the poor half famished children: and which she observed was the only food they had tasted for the last 24 hours! By the kind interposition of the worthy divine, a contribution was immediately raised for the relief of this wretched family.

I might add many more melancholly instances of the extreme poverty and distress of the wretched poor of London, and with which I was personally acquainted; but the foregoing it is presumed will be sufficient to satisfy the poorest class of inhabitants of America, that, if deprived of the superfluities, so long as they can obtain the necessaries of life, they ought not to murmur, but have reason to thank the Almighty that they were born Americans. That one half the world knows not how the other half lives, is a common and just observation;—complaints and murmurs are frequent I find among those of the inhabitants of this highly favoured country, who are not only blessed with the liberty and means of procuring for themselves and their families, the necessaries and comforts, but even many of the luxuries of life!—they complain of poverty, and yet never knew what it was to be really poor! having never either experienced or witnessed such scenes of distress and woe as I have described, they even suppose their imaginary wants and privations equal to those of almost any of the human race!

Let those of my countrymen who thus imagine themselves miserable amid plenty, cross the Atlantic and visit the miserable habitations of real and unaffected woe—if their hearts are not destitute of feeling, they will return satisfied to their own peaceful and happy shores, and pour forth the ejaculations of gratitude to that universal parent, who has given them abundance and exempted them from the thousand ills, under the pressure of which a great portion of his children drag the load of life. Permit me to enquire of such unreasonable murmurers, have you compared your situation and circumstances of which you so much complain, with that of those of your fellow creatures, who are unable to earn by their hard labour even a scanty pittance for their starving families? have you compared your situation and circumstances, with that of those who have hardly ever seen the sun, but live confined in lead mines, stone quarries, and coal pits?—before you call yourselves wretched, take a survey of the gaols in Europe, in which wretched beings who have been driven to the commissions of crimes by starvation, or unfortunate and honest debtors (who have been torn from their impoverished families) are doomed to pine.